HSS & PCI Receive Google Award Using Satellite Data to Help Pastoralists Find Greener Pastures

Project Concern International and HSS today received funding from Google to expand the Satellite Assisted Pastoral Resource Management (SAPARM) programme. SAPARM puts satellite-derived vegetation data directly in the hands of pastoralists, helping them decide where to find available pasture throughout the year. The current operational pilot will now expand in Ethiopia and Tanzania.

We first received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to pilot the approach. Traditional grazing maps were drawn on paper together with communities, then digitised and overlaid with satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data — a measure of photosynthetic activity. Updated and distributed every ten days, and used alongside traditional methods, these maps significantly help pastoralists find available pasture within approved grazing areas that can span thousands of square kilometres.

Initial results from the pilot were striking: 78% of households used the maps for migration decisions, and a majority named them their single most important source of information. After the maps were introduced, herd mortality fell by 47% compared with the previous three years — amounting to millions of dollars in preserved herd value.

With a $750,000 grant, we will now scale up the pilots in Ethiopia and Tanzania and test the innovation further.